International Journal of Computer Science Trends and Technology (IJCST) Volume 2 Issue 4, Jul-Aug 2014

ISSN: 2347-8578 www.ijcstjournal.org Page 172

Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and its Security Threats - An
Overview
V.Vasanthi
1
, M.Chidambaram
2

Research Scholar
1
, Research and Development Center
Bharathiar University, Coimbatore
Assistant Professor
2
, Department of Computer Science
Rajah Serfoji Govt. Arts College, Thanjavur
Tamil Nadu - India

ABSTRACT
The digital technologies have completely transformed with the introduction of IPTV which fuses telecommunication and digital
television delivery services together. Another revolution is that the user will be capable to have a bidirectional communication,
the ability to interact with the service provider and enjoy high quality end-to-end service, for example if the user requests
content from the EPG (Electronic Program Guide) which acts as an interface to access the IPTV service, then the desired
program is delivered. The IPTV service affords rich multimedia services over a measured IP network. IPTV end users are
increasing day by day as it is offering attractive features online with technological advancements. The paper gives an overview
of IPTV, its working, offered services and its security threats.
Keywords:- Set-top box (STB), VoD (Video on Demand)

I. INTRODUCTION

IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) is a
technology where the digital television services like video
channels and programs are delivered to the television sets
or the smart phones through a broadband connection, rather
than being delivered through the conventional cable or
broadcasts set-up. In simple terms, IPTV is nothing but a
video and audio being delivered over an IP network. The
user can watch internet TV on computer screen, a
television screen (with a set-top box installed) or a mobile
device like a cell phone or an iPad. The video streams are
encoded as a series of internet protocol packets and those
packets travel through the public internet which can be
received by any user by having a set-top box (STB) and a
subscription for the service. IPTV is a technology that
offers revenue generating opportunities for the telecom and
service providers. Verizon was the first Telco to offer
IPTV as it launched service in Keller Texas in Sept. 2005.
There are a lots of IPTV providers as of now. The
remaining of the paper is organized as follows: section II



explains the working of IPTV, section III lists the various
IPTV service, section IV discusses about the security
system, section V focuses on the security issues, section VI
deals the various security elements and section VII concludes
the paper.

II. HOW IPTV WORKS

With traditional Television, television services are
delivered over a broadcast network or over cable network via
satellite. The broadcast is being turned into radio waves and
they pass through the air to a roof-top antenna on house. The
antenna converts the waves back into electrical signals and the
TV set decodes them to make its sound and picture. In IPTV,
the videos are encoded as sequence of IP packets and
delivered over an IP network.

The audio / video contents that the IPTV Company
delivers to its end users are stored in IPTV video servers. The
contents like live programs are streamed, but prerecorded
programs and movies need to be stored in such a way that
RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS
International Journal of Computer Science Trends and Technology (IJCST) Volume 2 Issue 4, Jul-Aug 2014

ISSN: 2347-8578 www.ijcstjournal.org Page 173
they can be selected and streamed on demand. The IPTV
Company should obtain the rights to collect the videos and
redistribute the content. A Head end is the physical unit
which collects all media streams, encodes /decodes and
multicasts it for distribution.

The IPTV head end can be separated as satellite
reception, encoding and distribution. The content
reception is done with the use of large multi-focal point C-
band dish to receive the content signals from the various
satellite transmitters. The output received from various
receivers will be inserted into an encoding device to deliver
to the multicast IP addresses. These streams are encoded
either in MPEG2 or MPEG4 (is a compression technique
adopted by broadcasters for high definition television)
format. After all the received contents are demodulated and
multicast IP encoded, encryption is applied to the contents
to protect it from unauthorized access.

A. Protocols Used I n I ptv

Streaming a video is not like downloading a
normal file. Instead, a fragment of a file is downloaded,
played and, while it's playing, simultaneously downloads
the next part of the file ready to play in a minute. The
Internet links almost all the computers in the world as they
all agree to communicate with each other using agreed
technical procedures called protocols. Streaming employs
protocols adapted for concurrent downloading and playing,
such as RTP (Real-Time Protocol) and RTSP (Real-Time
Streaming Protocol). IGMP (IP Group Membership
Protocol) is used for streaming videos from the server and
broadcast it to members of a group of clients (many people
watching the same TV channel - multicast). The role of
the protocols in IPTV is depicted in fig.1.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) Browsers use
to communicate with the clients and the servers for
data transfer.
RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol) Used to
deliver Video on Demand services.
IGMP (IP Group Membership Protocol) Used for
connecting television with multicast TV
programming.


Fig 1. Protocols used in I PTV

B. I ptv Distribution Network

The IPTV Distribution Network covers large area,
with sufficient bandwidth and QoS (Quality of service) to the
customers for delivering the IPTV content. Fibre Optic
Technology has the capability of carrying thousands of audio
and video streams. In certain cases service providers install
Fibre optic connections to the next closest hub or to the street-
end which is termed as Fibre-To-The-Node or Neighbourhood
[FTTN] or Fibre-To-The-Curb [FTTC] or directly to home as
Fibre-To-The-Home [FTTH]. In common these technologies
are collectively known as FTTx. Generally the networks for
the IPTV distribution are Fiber to Home (FTTH / FTTx),
Ethernet Passive Optical Networks (PONs) or a hybrid
network with a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL).


Web Browsers
(Firefox,
Google Chrome)
Request
Response
HTTP (Hypertext
Transfer Protocol)
RSTP (Real Time
Streaming Protocol)
Real Player,
Windows Media
Player (Streamed
Video)

Request
Response
IGMP
(Internet Group
Management Protocol)
- Used for connecting to
multicast stream (TV channel)
- Used for switching between
channels.
International Journal of Computer Science Trends and Technology (IJCST) Volume 2 Issue 4, Jul-Aug 2014

ISSN: 2347-8578 www.ijcstjournal.org Page 174
C. Set Top Box Software as a Middleware

Set top box software acts as a middleware that
performs many operations on the set top box and also
allows watching the video content on TV. It accesses and
manages the content stream database on various IP
addresses and port numbers [1]. It also manages various
details like what package of channels the user can access,
subscribers details, their set top boxes, VoD (Video on
demand) etc. In addition, it provides the presentation to
the end users in the form of Electronic Program Guide
(EPG) which enables the user to view a program as well as
to navigate up and down within the subscribed channels.

D. I ptv Viewing Device The Set Top Box

The Set Top Box is a hardware device that
receives packets of streamed videos from the network,
encodes MPEG videos and decodes MPEG2 videos, and
then displays them as high-quality TV pictures. The set
top box works with the middleware to connect the end
users television with the IPTV service provider.

E. Rights Management

The Digital Rights Management (DRM) package
is responsible for encryption content. The DRM also
ensures how the content is protected and the nature of the
content protection. In pay-TV content is protected during
transmission from the head-end to the set-top box. This is
done by the cable and satellite operators on employing
conditional access security systems which restricts the
content usage to only authorized user to view the content.
IPTV also applies similar rules.

III. IPTV SERVICES

Time shift: With IPTVs time shift, the user can
watch a week programmes auto recorded.
Live TV Controller: Watching live TV broadcast
by using features like rewind, pause and play.
Real Movie on Demand: Rewind, fast forward, pause
and play the latest hit movies like watching with a
DVD player.
Triple play: Triple play means offering multiple
services by a single service provider such as voice
(Telephony), data (Internet access) and Television
services. Quadruple play adds mobile to the above
three. Dual mode GSM plus Wi-Fi cell phones
support quadruple play.
Other things that could be provided with IPTV are
Interactive applications like gaming, chatting or
transactional applications like TV Shopping.

IPTV supports both live TV (multicasting) and the
stored videos (unicasting) services. In case of live TV, the
video content is compressed using MPEG2 or MPEG4 codec
(A device which encodes and decodes digital media streams)
and then sent in the MPEG transport stream via IP multicast.
IP multicast is a one-to-many service model that delivers the
video content to many users simultaneously i.e, broadcast
television, whereas the unicast technology is a one-to-one
service model that delivers the video content specifically for
each user i.e., VoD service.

IV. SECURITY

The delivery of television service over IP requires an
intelligent network with advanced security that protects the
videos. IPTV can be subject to the hackers, threats and
vulnerabilities which may lead to customer dissatisfaction.
For this reason, providers must enforce complete security in
their IPTV networks from the start. The comprehensive
security plan for IPTV services must provide multiple layers
of security to protect content as well as end-users home
network. The concepts and security strategies used for other
IP services can be applied to protect IPTV content delivery
network but as IPTV has its own unique set of challenges like
unique high bandwidth, real time requirements and a different
International Journal of Computer Science Trends and Technology (IJCST) Volume 2 Issue 4, Jul-Aug 2014

ISSN: 2347-8578 www.ijcstjournal.org Page 175
set of user expectations from services, a new approach is
required.

V. IPTV SECURITY ISSUES

Security problems may arise in home networks,
delivery and management networks and content source.
The attackers may sometimes take control of the home
networks by disrupting the service, spreading worms,
virus, Trojan and stealing the content. Problems like
middleware problem, weak account and passwords,
streaming/ encoding server problem, may arise in delivery
and management networks. In content source, problems
like finding the backup, discovering the source may occur.
A security violation opens up a chance for bandwidth
consuming attacks that can degrade the IPTV providers
service and result in user disappointment and possibility of
service cancellation.

VI. PRECAUTIONS TO HANDLE
SECURITY ISSUES

In order to provide a secure IPTV service, the
providers must focus more on security elements like
privacy, confidentiality, integrity, availability and
interoperability.

Privacy Telcoms must store the customer
information in a highly protected method and they
should also make clear whether the customer premise
equipments (CPEs) such as set-top-box, belong to the
customer or the service provider [4].
Confidentiality Digital Right Management (DRM)
must be used, recorded contents should be protected
and the system should provide high level of
authentication and authorization [4].
Integrity Content source security should be enforced,
authorized access to the billing system and internal fraud
should be detected and avoided.
Availability Disruption in IPTV service should be
avoided, Denial of service attack and side channel attacks
should be disallowed.
Interoperability A common standard on IPTV must be
adopted so that the change of service provider does not
bring any major impact.

VII. CONCLUSIONS

The services offered by IPTV and the digital
technologies have been used by people all over the world as it
satisfies the edutainment/entertainment needs of the people.
The increase in number of service providers and users has
witnessed the investments in this industry. To offer better
service and retain the subscribers, the IPTV providers have to
enforce an intelligent and secured network. This paper has
discussed the various security threats that are hurdles for the
growth of IPTV. It has been identified that the security
elements like privacy, confidentiality, integrity, availability,
interoperability are to be addressed for the sustainable growth
of the technology.

REFERENCES

[1] http://www.engineersgarage.com
[2] http:// www.explainthatstuff.com/how IPTV works.html
[3] Amal Punchihewa, Ann Malsha De Silva, Yongseng Diao, Internet
Protocol Television, Multimedia Research Group, School of Engineering
and Advanced Technology, Massey University 2010.
[4] Yen-Ming Chen, Senior Principal Consultant- Foundstone, A division of
McAfee, Triple Play; Triple Threats? IPTV Security.
[5] Amy Harris, Greg Ireland, Enabling IPTV: What Carriers Need to Know
to Succeed, IDC White Paper, May 2005.